nginx redirection to index page - nginx

Question

I am struggling to implement an automatic nginx redirect from non index pages to my index page, with the exception of /admin
For instance, example.com/test should redirect to example.com, but example.com/admin should not redirect to example.com
This is my current nginx configuration file:
upstream app_server {
server unix:/tmp/mysite.sock;
}
proxy_cache_path /var/www/example.com/cache levels=1:2 keys_zone=my_cache:10m max_size=10g inactive=60m use_temp_path=off;
server {
listen 80;
server_name www.example.com example.com;
# redirects both www and non-www to https
return 301 https://www.example.com$request_uri;
}
server {
listen 443;
server_name example.com;
return 301 https://www.example.com$request_uri;
}
server {
listen 443 ssl http2 default_server;
listen [::]:443 ssl http2 default_server;
server_name www.example.com;
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.example.com/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/www.example.com/privkey.pem;
charset utf-8;
client_max_body_size 75M;
location /media {
alias /var/www/example.com/media;
}
location /static {
alias /var/www/example.com/static;
}
location / {
proxy_cache my_cache;
include proxy_params;
proxy_pass http://app_server;
proxy_ssl_server_name on;
}
}
I have tried adding a try_files statetement within my location / block, and other things, but none seem to work. Am I missing something?

Answer 1

You are trying to mix proxy_pass with try_files, it won't work within the same location block. You can use named location instead and rewrite any URI that doesn't start with /admin to a root one using negative regex assertion:
location / {
try_files $uri #app;
}
location #app {
rewrite ^(?!/admin) / break;
proxy_cache my_cache;
include proxy_params;
proxy_pass http://app_server;
}
You don't need the separate location /media { ... } or location /static { ... } blocks, because as nginx documentation states:
When location matches the last part of the directive’s value:
location /images/ {
alias /data/w3/images/;
}
it is better to use the root directive instead:
location /images/ {
root /data/w3;
}
Instead you just need to define the common server root (outside of any location blocks):
root /var/www/example.com;
You are also don't need to use the proxy_ssl_server_name directive since you are not proxying your request to the upstream with HTTPS protocol.